The images you see are for a development in Denmark called the "Danish Light*house," a collaboration between UNStudio, 3xn, and Gehl Architects. Light*house is the winner of the competition for a new Aarhus harbor front. In addition to the 140 meter residential tower, the project includes the ancillary buildings also on the water front. With sub-level parking and no parking on ground level, one goal of Light*house is to create a walkable environment that draws visitors to the water. Although details are still in general terms, starting sometime in 2008, it will be built to the newest energy standards and sustainable building practices. Light*house will have a healthy mix of rental + owner-occupied housing; a large portion of the project will include non-profit rental housing. When construction is complete in 2010, the project owners hope to have the harbor front in Denmark. More pics below the jump. Via.

Recently, I’ve run across the work of an environmentally friendly Thai architect named Singh Intrachooto. Singh saw a problem in the industry and decided to do something to close the loop. If you’ve ever been involved with construction of any form, you know there’s tons of wasted materials. That’s where Singh comes in. He takes left over scrap from construction sites and designs furniture with them, each piece being different depending on the size and shape of the materials that get salvaged. Now, Singh’s furniture has exploded and is on display in Los Angeles and Paris.

Singh sells the furniture via his website, OSISU, but I’m not necessarily advocating the purchase of his work. It’s incredible and inspiring, but we have our own construction waste here in the U.S. We have tons of it. And it’s going straight to the landfill. Why not find value in that trash? Let’s close the loop and put good materials to use. With Singh, it was just about 18 months ago that he decided to start making this furniture, and in his words, "people thought he was crazy." Now it’s getting big-time coverage all over the media. All it takes is asking the construction workers to set aside scraps like wood, steel, and concrete. The pieces pictured were made from reclaimed teak morsels. Via reuters.

Riverhouse, or One Rockefeller Park, is slated to open in late 2007 in Manhattan, and the word on the street is that it could be one of the greenest, most stylish residential developments on the East Coast. The developer, Sheldrake Organization, is planning on LEED Gold certification for the building. To do that, Sheldrake has enlisted the help of Polshek Partnership Architects for the exterior design and Ismael Leyva Architects for the interior design. In addition, the famous Rockwell Group is working on interior design for the one-, two-, and three-bedroom residences and other aspects of the building.

Green Features:Here’s a list of some of the things the developer will do: use recycled wastewater for cooling the tower and landscaping; generate electricity from solar photovoltaic panels on the roof; draw in natural lighting without heat gain by using low-E, double-pane glass; use Energy Star appliances to save energy and Toto dual-flush toilets to save water; construct the building with about 20% recycled materials and recycle over 80% of the construction waste; and acquire over 40% of the building materials locally.

If you’re like me, you don’t have The Sundance Channel and you buy each episode of Big Ideas on iTunes for $1.99. I downloaded the last episode called "BUILD" and liked it so much, I’m going to buy a copy of the video on iTunes for the first 5 people to comment in this post. It’s really good. In an information-packed 25 minutes and 38 seconds, the producers take us through Michelle Kaufmann’s prefab factory, the process of building a Glidehouse, Carlton Brown’s green multifamily housing in New York, the advantages of green building, the future of green building with technology, and Mitchell Joachim’s fab tree hab.

Note – I’ll use the email that you comment with to gift the episode to you through iTunes. This is not a Sundance promo, this is JG promoting modern, green building.

Not only is this place sustainable, but rooms are small, too. With 96 units at an average size of 300 sf, Near North Apartments (NNA) is a pretty incredible habitat for people that deserve to live in a well-designed space. NNA is the creation of renowned architect Helmut Jahn, who designed the single-occupant spaces for limited income, homeless, and disabled persons. You’ll notice from the images that the building generates some power through roof-mounted wind turbines, or aeroturbines. to be precise, the building shape was conceived to maximize wind to the aeroturbines. They were invented at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and are now being marketed through Aerotecture International.

The building also uses solar thermal collectors and a rainwater reclamation system. The water system recycles shower water to flush toilets, apparently making it one of the few graywater systems in Chicago. NNA is located at 1244 North Clybourn Avenue in Chicago and is owned by Mercy Housing Lakefront group. The reason I’m blogging about this structure, in addition to being an example of small, sustainable living, is because it was listed on Metropolitan Home’s 2007 Design 100 list. Congrats.